At present, the United States Postal Service (the “USPS”) provides a domestic USPS PACKAGE INTERCEPT® service that allows USPS customers the ability to request that a mail piece that the USPS customer has sent to a domestic address using the USPS be intercepted prior to its delivery. See USPS, https://pi.usps.com/cpi/faq.jsp (“1. What is USPS Package Intercept?”), © 2013 (international destinations or destinations that require customs forms are not included in the service).
The term “mail piece” as used herein will be understood to apply to any type of item for delivery by a carrier, including, without limitation, packages, envelopes, and any other types of mail items.
According to the USPS, after a package has been sent using the USPS, the sending USPS customer may place a package intercept request—a commercial customer may submit an online request to intercept a mail piece through the USPS “Business Customer Gateway” (BCG) if the commercial customer is registered BCG user, has a permit account that is linked to a USPS “Centralized Account Payment System” (CAPS) Debit Account, has a Mailer ID, and has “Managed Mail” activity; a retail USPS customer may submit a request to intercept a mail piece by completing a USPS form; both commercial and retail customers would pay the USPS fees for the intercept service and fees for any additional services that the customer may request—the fees for a commercial customer would be deducted from that customer's permit account/debit account; a retail customer would need to pay the fee with some form of payment, such as cash, or credit card, acceptable to the USPS. See USPS, https://pi.usps.com/cpi/faq.jsp (“2. How is USPS Package Intercept Requested?”), © 2013.
According to the USPS, before placing a request to intercept a mail piece, a USPS customer should first validate the status of their mail piece by using the USPS Track & Confirm tool (through the USPS online website; the use of which requires a pre-assigned tracking identifier). See USPS, https://pi.usps.com/cpi/faq.jsp (“9. What Should a Customer Do Before Placing a USPS Package Intercept Request?”), © 2013.
According to the USPS, once a request to intercept a mail piece has been submitted, information about the request would be sent to the relevant destination delivery unit for the address on the mail piece in order to intercept the mail piece before it is delivered. See USPS, https://pi.usps.com/cpi/faq.jsp (“1. What is USPS Package Intercept?”), © 2013.
Similarly, private carrier United Parcel Service (“UPS”) provides a package recipient with the ability to modify delivery instructions for a particular package. Generally though, in order to modify UPS delivery instructions, a UPS recipient must be registered with UPS.
Presently, governmental and private carriers do not provide for mail piece “manifest” interception services. For example, it would be useful for a user, whether an individual or a company, that may have sent a number of mail pieces, each to a separate address, to be able to submit a single “manifest” request to intercept each mail piece before it is delivered. For example, in a situation where the sending user realizes that there is a mistake in a letter sent with a number of mail pieces, or realizes that the wrong item has been sent in each of a number of mail pieces, or the like, it would be useful for the sending user to be able to intercept all such mail pieces, and be able to provide the relevant carrier with manifest-wide and/or mail-piece-specific intercept and subsequent measure instructions. For example, if a sending user wanted to have all of the relevant mail pieces returned to the sending user, it would be helpful to facilitate a sending user being able to provide a manifest-wide instruction to intercept all of the mail pieces identified by the intercept manifest and return all of them to a particular address, such as the sending user's return address. Alternatively, a sending user may want to provide mail-piece-specific intercept and subsequent measure instructions. For example, a sending user may want to indicate that some mail pieces identified on the intercept manifest should be returned to a sending-user-provided address, and that other mail pieces identified on the intercept manifest be sent to another sending-user-provided address.
A way is needed to provide sending users with a mail piece intercept “manifest” to facilitate interception by the relevant carrier of a number of mail pieces, and to facilitate manifest-wide and/or mail-piece-specific intercept and subsequent measure instructions.
Further, presently, governmental and private carriers do not provide for mail piece monitoring and providing rescue alerts to relevant users. For example, for a mail item that is sent from Los Angeles to be delivered to an address in Washington State, neither governmental nor private carriers would currently alert a sending customer, or indeed would even themselves be aware, if the mail piece had remained at any particular carrier processing location for a longer period of time that would normally be expected, or, was off route in, for example, New Jersey. For a mail piece that might contain, for example, critical components for a recipient's device, either or both the sending and receiving users might want to be alerted of such processing issues or off-route situations so that alternative actions could be taken. For example, the relevant receiving user might want to order, or the relevant sending user might want to send, an alternative replacement for express delivery and recall the off-route component.
As another example, if user sent a mail piece using a particular carrier from Los Angeles to an address in Washington State, and a particular processing facility for that carrier, for example, a processing hub, in between the origin and destination started experiencing an issue, such as a weather-related shut-down, or the like, the sending user might want to send a replacement using, for example, a different delivery service by the same carrier, or another carrier (for which no such processing issues might have occurred) to the recipient and recall the original mail piece. Alternatively, the sending user might want to alert the carrier, or might want the carrier to be automatically alerted, of the mis-routing of the mail piece and give the relevant carrier an opportunity to rescue the mail piece and direct it to its proper destination.
A way is needed to monitor mail pieces to determine whether or not they are following a projected route, and/or whether or not issues that might impact their delivery and/or their delivery schedule, may have arisen along their projected route; a way is needed to provide an alert to the relevant user(s) and/or parties of any such issues, including miss-routing, and to facilitate alternative user/party measures and/or rescue services by the relevant carrier for the subject mail piece.
Yet further, governmental and private carrier services do not provide for mail piece intervention by parties other than the sender, and in some limited cases, the subject recipient. However, it would be helpful if the above-mentioned alerts could also be provided to other potentially interested parties, such as, for example, an insurer.
A way is needed to allow an authorized user to designate other authorized parties to receive such alerts.
Still further, it would be helpful, for certain circumstances, for certain types of entities and/or parties to be able to alert the relevant carrier of a suspicious mail piece so that the mail piece can be confiscated. For example, if a service provider that facilitates production of carrier-recognized shipping indicia should discover, such as from internal rules, that a particular set of mail piece indicia was produced by a third-party hacker using an authorized user's account, then it would be helpful for such a service provider to be able to generate an intercept request for that mail piece with instructions to the relevant carrier to confiscate the mail piece.
A way is needed to facilitate an authorized party to instruct the relevant carrier to confiscate a particular mail piece.